First post in a new blog!

I've been learning the art and skills of fine woodworking since October last year.
I thought it may be of interest to record the process as I (hopefully) develop from virtual novice to… well I guess I'll have to wait and see.
Maybe just an older, greyer novice.

First things first..

I must give a big mention to John McMahon School of Fine Woodworking based at Pleasley Mill near Mansfield Nottinghamshire. Check out the website if you're interested.

schoolofwoodworking.co.uk

I'll add posts now and then with thoughts and experiences as i build up my experience of creating things out of wood mainly using hand tools.

The question is 

why in this age of CAD, CNC equipment, 3-D printing and so on, would anyone want to spend the considerable time and effort to make something from solid wood, by hand using techniques that have been around for centuries (millennia actually - think Noah and the ark!) when there are much easier (and cheaper) ways to "get stuff".

It's not easy to give a simple answer

There are lots of reasons why it would be much simpler to go to B&Q or Ikea and buy a kitchen or flat-pack piece of furniture. I've built (assembled to be more precise) lots of flat packs and even installed my own kitchen.
There is a certain satisfaction in working through those wordless pictorial instructions until the item looks just like the one you saw in the shop.

The kitchen is doing OK after a couple of years of hard use in a family with 2 teenage boys.
But I recall how it grieved me to tear out the solid pine kitchen cupboards, with their warped doors and drawers that didn't close properly.
No "soft close" gliding action here I'm afraid!

The thing about MDF is:

It's precisely reproducible to exact size on machines.
It's also perfectly stable once machined to size: it doesn't shrink or warp or split. (unless it gets wet!)

BUT:
it's totally lifeless - never was alive (ever).
It has no smell.
It has no beauty.
It creates fine dust particles that give you cancer if you breathe too much in!

It doesn't even burn well when you've had enough of it!

So what's the deal with solid wood?

Well it has grain and texture.
That means:

• it might split or tear along the grain as you cut or plane it
• you can't easily work across the direction of the grain
• it will shrink then swell and twist and warp so that your carefully prepared stock no longer fits together

So why on earth would we choose to work with this difficult material??

Precisely because it's is a real, natural substance.
No two pieces are the same.
It's unpredictable.
It's part of nature.
And the desire of us all is to tame the Wild Earth.
Why do humans create landscapes, gardens, even buildings?
We have a deep seated need to modify the raw planet around us into something more controlled.
That which was created by the force of natural laws, by evolution, or by an almighty being, we seek to conquer and re-make in our own fashion.

Perhaps this finds its ultimate expression in the felling of a tree after maybe hundreds of years of growth and by using little more than bare hands to destroy the tree only to recreate something of our own design and making.

By this, (maybe) we are closer to our Creator...